Who is in responsible for protecting our Valuable Papers? | Eastern North Carolina Now

Within government, policy and decision making is supposed to be done by our elected officials in our democratic republic. There is no one elected office who has absolute power to do anything.  That is one of the things that makes the United States unique among nations.

The decision makers in some of our governing units and offices are employees of government.  This happens when weak, incompetent or egotistically driven individuals are elected. Most of the time the hired help (staff) seizes control when elected officials are lazy, corrupt or stupid or a combination of these..  Every elected office is somewhere between the staff being in total control and elected officials being in total control.   This is why an alert public, along with a few alert elected officials are vitally important to keeping democracy alive and effective.

It is not unusual for elected officials to presume they have more powers than the law provides or to simply fail to exercise the power they actually have. In our constitutional form of government, the source of all power is the people.

Seizing power is what happened when our newly appointed Register of Deeds, Carolyn Garris, stopped filing hard copies of deeds and related documents.  She was a political appointee with four days of total experience when she seized power and made decisions that violated the Budget Ordinance.

In a capitalist democracy, we have the inalienable right to own property.  Proof of ownership and the succession of ownership provide us with order and a more peaceful life.  This order and security of our property is provided to us by our courts, law enforcement and recorded documents.  In order to guarantee the ownership and succession of ownership of property we have Registers of Deeds in  all 100 counties.  They maintain and provide copies of birth certificates, marriage licenses, deeds and other documents.   All of these are necessary for the orderly and peaceful transfer of property.

The recording of documents and their convenient availability is of concern to the public. Virtually every person in Beaufort County has contact with our Register of Deeds office or another public registry somewhere.  

From the time of the founding of our nation, and during the past few hundred years, vital records have been kept on paper at the courthouse.  Recently (within the last 50 years) the Secretary of State has been designated by the Legislature to provide back up for these important documents in the form of  archives.  That is, should records be destroyed, a new registry could be established using the Secretary of Sate’s archives.  A lot of volume would be required to record duplicate copies of the contents of 100 Registers of Deeds files. Various methods have been used to reduce the size of storage space.  Mostly, microfilm until recently. 

The newly born technology (only about 20 years old) has revolutionized not only the storage of documents but has improved every facet of our lives.  During the short history of digital technology there has been a multitude of digital languages and storage methods.  One of these is “the cloud”, an internet system of multiple recordings on storage servers at several locations.  The theory is that if one server fails another will provide duplicate information to back it up.   However, the cloud has some flaws.  It must have a source of electricity and it is subject to magnetic impulse.   Electricity comes from generating plants. Magnetic impulse comes from the sun or atomic bombs or unknown places in outer space.  Government files are hacked virtually every day.  Our North Carolina Secretary of State had a hacker early this year.  Several weeks were required to recover the information. We do not know whether we paid a ransom to the hacker(s) to retrieve the data.  Forgeries are more easily accomplished in digital form than  on hard copy.

Because of the march of technology the Legislature has crafted laws that say Registers of Deeds “may” use alternative methods for backing up documents and filing documents.  No laws mandate filing mediums other than to provide for cooperation with the Secretary of State.

I do not oppose these laws, and use digital methods extensively in my business and personal life.

County governments, through Boards of Commissioners provide the money for the salary of Registers of Deeds, the offices , employees and the supplies and materials for the recording of documents.   There is nothing in the law that gives full authority to a Register of Deeds to decide how documents will be filed or how they will be made available to the public.  Boards of County Commissioners have a duty to protect the public.  That is why the sole taxing authority and spending authority in all 100 counties in North Carolina is in the hands of the County Commissioners.  County taxes pay for the operation of the local Register of Deeds.

I believe the best protection for the public is not to rely on the cloud which includes the internet as the sole method or making documents available to the public.  I believe the public is best served by continuing to record on the cloud and to provide a hard copy back up.  There may be other methods of protecting documents in addition to these.  I do not necessarily oppose them.  Historically the public has been able to enter the courthouse and see their proof of birth, marriage, death and property ownership on paper.  Microfilm in place of hard copy books is not acceptable, in my opinion.  It requires electricity and the film is fragile.

I have heard the arguments about not having enough space in the Register of Deeds Office.  These statements are not true.  I have personally measured and there is enough space for another ten years of recording hard copies currently available in the Register of Deeds office. 

What Beaufort County needs is a serious review of how our records and filed.  It is important that the Register of Deeds and the County Commission, along with participation of those who make frequent use of the records, should work cooperatively in insuring that The People’s important documents are safe, secure and readily available to the public and those serving the public’s interests.  No one person should make these decisions.  And because the implementation of these decisions cost money, it is vital for the County Commission to be involved in a significant way.  This has not been the case in Beaufort County recently and it should be immediately addressed.